Michael Moore

Sony Pictures announced yesterday that Michael Jackson’s This Is It would be released exclusively for a limited two-week engagement worldwide on Wednesday, Oct. 28. Tickets will go on sale in San Francisco beginning Sunday, Sept. 27.

Separately, the film’s producers have announced that Kenny Ortega has been tapped to direct. The Emmy Award-winning director was previously responsible for visualizing Disney’s High School Musical movies, as well as directing the opening and closing ceremonies for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City. He will begin work on the long-rumored remake of Footloose this fall.

Ladies and gentlemen, set your DVRs. At the Movies, the beacon of televised film criticism founded by Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel in 1975, is about to undergo a much-needed makeover.

For those who have followed the syndicated weekly show since Ebert and latter-day partner Richard Roeper left Disney-ABC Domestic Television last summer, the introduction of Michael Phillips and A.O. Scott as the latest pair of critics to occupy the vaunted balcony should come as welcome news.

Now playing at the Embarcadero Center Cinema, one of the year’s most important films, Food, Inc., traces the industrial food revolution from its mid-20th century beginnings, when new, profoundly influential restaurant chains like McDonalds introduced the factory-inspired concept of line cooking in their kitchens, to the present, when supermarkets are routinely stocked with genetically engineered meats and vegetables.